My two most recent purchases were The Marriage Plot by Eugenides and Machine Man by Max Barry.
What about you guys?
I keep hearing good things about The Marriage Plot.
Recent:
Aftermath by Scott Nadelson
a visit from the goon squad by Jennifer Egan
Stories an Anthology edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio
The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
(I'm going on a book bender at Wordstock this coming weekend, so I will have a good list for you then)
A second hand copy of The Selected Novels and Stories of Joseph Conrad.
@Brandon :I bet that's what he's probably thinking too. But what a great introduction to an exciting new writer.
edit: can't wait for the quote button!
Hey Rennie, miss your aggravated Avatar.
I'll have to alternate between the two to reflect my current demeanor in the workshops. You will come to fear the aggrovatar.
Lost it at a closing borders :
Imperial Bedrooms -Ellis
Eleanor rigby- Coupland
Visit from the GOon Squad-Egan
A Happy Death -- Camus
Syrup -- Max Barry
One Hundred Years of Solitude -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Angel Dust Apocalypse -- Jeremy Robert Johnson
All for less than $10 at used book store
dammit brandon you beat me to it. this is my longest living thread over at the cult
i havent bought any books in a while, which is odd for me, but durden did send me the best erotica from 2003, which contains the first glimpses of CHOKE. does that count?
Reamde, Neal Stephenson
Moneyball, Michael Lewis.
Both for the Kindle because Reamde is too bloody big to carry around in paper.
The Richard Bachman Collection from a Goodwill.
The most recent book I purchased was Slaughterhouse Five. But I just got On The Road by Jack Kerouac from a friend.
Full Dark, No Stars - Stephen King
278 pages in and its great.
I'm always on the hunt for science books, and I hit upon a huge sale at a Borders that was closing down, so my most recent purchases are a little academic. They are:
The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World - Paul Roberts
The World Without Us - Alan Weisman
Forbidden Creatures: Inside the World of Animal Smuggling and Exotic Pets - Peter Laufer
Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion - Alan Burdick
Hold Your Water! 68 Things You Need to Know to Keep Our Planet Blue- Steeve Creech
Ever more for my growing collection!
A collection of Tolstoy short stories (translations on the opposing page) and an anthology of articles designed to illustrate the history and culture of weekly alternatve newspapers called 'Notes from the Underground' (not by Fyodor)
Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (I got this one for my almost-14-yr-old daughter for us to read and discuss together)
Also just bought The Devil All The Time--really enjoying it so far.
@Jack -- I also bought my copy of the Richard Bachman collection at a Goodwill, so that's odd.
Also got a second-hand copy of Portnoy's Complaint, an audiobook of Christopher Moore's Lamb, an a Gideon Bible I stole from an abandoned battered women's shelter.
Geek Love (Katherine Dunn) and Survivor (Chuck Palahniuk) r next in line
Steel and Other Stories by Richard Matheson
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Spook Country by William Gibson
@Destructo the Mad - I'm getting a Nook for my birthday next month but I couldn't wait to get the new Stephenson novel. The thing is a friggin' brick, and I had to switch to a new purse just so I could carry it around with me.
the last one i bought was the samaritan, for the cult book club. my opions are mixed right now.
Twenty-Seventh City by Jonathan Franzen
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
I'm not allowed to buy books at the moment... :(
I'm halfway through Glamorama. I never got a chance to actually finish it and I love it so much.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson, A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles, Supergods by Grant Morrison.
I haven't bought a book in a long time.
Recently downloaded this book called "Steal this Book" by Abby Hoffman. She wrote it in prison and it's got millions of ways to cheat the american system. Most of it is outdated, but I am fascinated by anarchistic things.
JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglas
DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman (research for something I'm writing)
Goodbye 20th Century: a Biography of Sonic Youth by David Browne
Shonen Jump, May 2005
Claymore, volume 15
Urgent Care by Hannah Alexander
Second Opinion by Hannah Alexander
Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
I always thought Anthem was her best book..
Another $20 to Amazon for:
A Kiss Before Dying -- Ira Levin
Love Is A Mixtape: Life and Loss, One Song At A Time -- Rob Sheffield
Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame(Poems) -- Charles Bukowski
mmmm... Bukowski
@Achillez: DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Strassman (research for something I'm writing)
I bought this a few weeks ago. What are you writing if I may ask.
@jacks_username: Working on a novel based on this kid I know. He took ayahuasca and a few weeks later he swore he was hearing voices. He's an atheist and in the book the voice is implied to be some sort of God. He struggles with his beliefs, and we're never entirely sure if the voices are real or simple hallucinations.
That being said, it's coming along very slowly. I've started over twice already, but I like where it's going this time. It's just hard to find time to write when I have so much work to do for school.
Just bought Machine Man by Max Berry and Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned the Seal by Joe R. Lansdale.
Psyren by Toshiaki Iwashiro
Laddertop (1) by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Witch & Wizard by James Patterson
Recently ordered Beautiful Children - Charles Bock and The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino, can't wait to see if that one lives up to the hype. Also preordered Murakami's 1Q84 (books 1 - 3) and waiting on my signed copy of Damned from St. Helens Bookshop (but surely that goes without saying doesn't it?)
Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher
Edit:
oops.. forgot to add:
Stay Go d by Nik Korpon
Finally picked up a copy of Rant, one of the few Palahniuk's I've yet to read.
I'm still on the hunt for Drive by James Sallis though...
Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-Politcal Change and The Archaeology of Measurement: Comprehending Heaven Earth and Time in Ancient Societies, both edited by Colin Renfrew, Baron Of Kaimsthorne, Ph.D and all around archaeological bad ass. (Both books are because of my areas of interest and research for a set of short stories.)
Maggie Cassiday was a birthday gift, so that probably does not count, but found a really good copy of The Town and the City by Kerouac at a used book store which is next on my fiction reading list.
@Achillez
Interesting concept for a novel. Psychedelics changed me (in a good way). Poor kid though, sounds like he has schizophrenia from it though. I'm not doctor though. Good luck finishing your novel, I know my own is taking me forever to write.
Stay God. (For my kindle)
The first compendium of The Walking Dead.
Elements of Style.
Shit my wallet at Wordstock:
A Common Pornography by Kevin Sampsell
Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Wildwood by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis
The Apothecary by Maile Meloy
Everything and More by David Foster Wallace
The Wordstock 10, 2011 Short Fiction Contest Anthology
HMV... I love you. I've been wanting to try some Delillo for a while and today I went in HMV and got White Noise and Cosmopolis for £2 each.
Tell me what you think of Chronic City when you finish it, Chester. Personally I didn't finish it, and the value of it is such to me that I can't even find a used bookstore that will buy it or give me trade-in value for it. In fact, that book gave kind of a bad first impression for Lethem.
And just to clarify, I LOVE books about NYC, and I also love books about Mary Jane, but the plot just never seemed to be going anywhere.
Recently bought:
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Crash by J.G. Ballard
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Hoping to read them in that order by early November.
Good luck, but in my experience the last book on that list has no respect for deadlines. Make sure you bring 2 separate bookmarks.
Yeah, I realized pretty fast it's wishful thinking. I'll probably be set 'til Christmas.
But, for the record, OMG that book is awesome. I love DFW. In fact, if I may be so bold to offer my advice, get Oblivion or some of his other short story/essay compilations too. Oblivion, in particular, has a short story titled "Another Pioneer" that will blow your fucking mind.
But, you should finish Infinite Jest first, you have to keep at that book or it will make you retreat and then two months since you last touched it you're trying to figure out what page you were on by reversing the endnote references and trying to remember all the crazy story arcs.
Yeah I just finished Crash, very awesome book.